October 02, 2009

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from September Food Mags

As we head into October, here are a few non-recipe related items from September's food magazines that caught our eye.

Bon Appétit

A great chef's knife for less than $25? Yes, please. Bon Appétit claims to have found just that, with this knife produced by Mundial, a respected knife manufacturer.

We, admittedly, are knife neophytes and take most of our cutlery advice from Cook's Illustrated. In fact, almost all the knives we own were recommended by Cook's. But at $25, we're willing to give any knife a go.

We were ecstatic to see Saveur feature two of our favorite food destinations in its September issue.

The first is Chase's Daily, a fantastic restaurant in Belfast, Maine. Our friends Dan and Wendy took us there back in 2007 and it was one of those meals we've talked about ever since.

But here's the kicker -- it's a vegetarian restaurant. If you read The Bitten Word with any regularity, you know that we eat our fair share of meat. But Chase's is still one of our all-time favorite dining experiences. The dish we still talk about is a braised fennel that was truly spectacular.

If you're ever in Maine, make the trip to Belfast for a meal at Chase's. They don't have a website, but you can easily find them. Here's the Saveur profile of the restaurant.

The second destination mentioned in Saveur is the Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport, California. When we visited San Francisco earlier this year and planned to take a drive down the coast, our friend Trey demanded that we stop at Swanton. Though it is a working berry farm, there is also ample food in a small help-yourself kitchen. We arrived mid-morning and helped ourselves to blackberry cobbler and strawberry shortcake. (Yeah, we said mid-morning. WHAT?)

The farm's setting is gorgeous -- just across Highway 1 from the Pacific Ocean. And the food was AMAZING. The fresh fruit cobbler and shortcake were stunningly delicious. And we were utterly charmed by the fact that it's all on an honor system: There aren't any employees working in the kitchen. You just help yourself to the food out of the icebox, tally up the total, and leave the money on the counter (taking change if you need it).

After the jump, we'll leave you with some photos we took at Swanton Farm in May. Hope your October is off to a smashing start!

Comments

As we head into October, here are a few non-recipe related items from September's food magazines that caught our eye.

Bon Appétit

A great chef's knife for less than $25? Yes, please. Bon Appétit claims to have found just that, with this knife produced by Mundial, a respected knife manufacturer.

We, admittedly, are knife neophytes and take most of our cutlery advice from Cook's Illustrated. In fact, almost all the knives we own were recommended by Cook's. But at $25, we're willing to give any knife a go.

We were ecstatic to see Saveur feature two of our favorite food destinations in its September issue.

The first is Chase's Daily, a fantastic restaurant in Belfast, Maine. Our friends Dan and Wendy took us there back in 2007 and it was one of those meals we've talked about ever since.

But here's the kicker -- it's a vegetarian restaurant. If you read The Bitten Word with any regularity, you know that we eat our fair share of meat. But Chase's is still one of our all-time favorite dining experiences. The dish we still talk about is a braised fennel that was truly spectacular.

If you're ever in Maine, make the trip to Belfast for a meal at Chase's. They don't have a website, but you can easily find them. Here's the Saveur profile of the restaurant.

The second destination mentioned in Saveur is the Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport, California. When we visited San Francisco earlier this year and planned to take a drive down the coast, our friend Trey demanded that we stop at Swanton. Though it is a working berry farm, there is also ample food in a small help-yourself kitchen. We arrived mid-morning and helped ourselves to blackberry cobbler and strawberry shortcake. (Yeah, we said mid-morning. WHAT?)

The farm's setting is gorgeous -- just across Highway 1 from the Pacific Ocean. And the food was AMAZING. The fresh fruit cobbler and shortcake were stunningly delicious. And we were utterly charmed by the fact that it's all on an honor system: There aren't any employees working in the kitchen. You just help yourself to the food out of the icebox, tally up the total, and leave the money on the counter (taking change if you need it).

After the jump, we'll leave you with some photos we took at Swanton Farm in May. Hope your October is off to a smashing start!